Re: [Freedos-user] (no subject)

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

How can a .jar be run on Android or iOS? Android is built on some bastardized 
version of JAVA but AFAIK nobody has yet produced a fully functional JAVA 
Runtime Environment (JRE) for Android.
 As for iOS, Apple seems to hate JAVA with as much fury as they do Flash.

Apple sayeth "#%#@ Flash and JAVA. HTML 5.0 is the future!" and Adobe just 
about instantly discontinued development on Flash for Android and other mobile 
platforms.

Looks like they could uses something like this cross-platform system. Seems to 
embed an app specific JRE into the app, like a 'wrapper' to interface between 
the JAVA code and the OS's API.
Write iOS apps in Java along with Android – Mateusz Bartos – Medium



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Write iOS apps in Java along with Android – Mateusz Bartos – Medium

Mateusz Bartos

Worldwide, Android is installed on 66% of mobile devices, while iOS is used by 
24% of the global users. But in c...
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On Thursday, April 26, 2018, 2:31:57 PM MDT, Dale E Sterner 
 wrote:  
 
 Can I ask what country you live in.
I hope that doesn't happen in the US.
A lot of people don't have computers here.
Either they're too expensive or they just
don't like them.
I just can't imagine not having paper forms.

cheers
DS



On Thu, 26 Apr 18 17:47:05 + =?UTF-8?B?Sm9zZSBBbnRvbmlvIFNlbm5h?=
 writes:
> 
> Dale E Sterner  said:
> 
> > I use qpro to crunch the numbers
> > I still have to get it to print the completed form out.
> > Each year it grows a little bigger and better.
> > I still have to hand copy it into a 1040 form.
> 
>    Yes, and this is why I said you are lucky.
>    You can still use paper forms,  which do not care
>  about how you fill them. 
>    In 2010 or 2011 our government did away
>  completely with paper tax forms.  Everything is
>  now electronic and must be filled in a computer,
>  using one of the purpose-written programs freely
>  available from  the revenue service, then uploaded 
>  to their site. 
>    All those programs are written in Java, so the same 
>  .jar can be used with Windows, Linux or MacOS
>  (now also with  Android or IOs, if you dare to use 
>  an smartphone to fill tax forms).  
>    The programs have been updated since they 
>  appeared, and current tax forms cannot be used 
>  with the older versions.  This is why the JVM version
>  also had to be updated.
> 
>  JAS  --
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Re: [Freedos-user] Windows 3.1 in 386 mode

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

What hardware? That of course needs an 80386 or newer CPU.
Another thing is any drivers loaded in config.sys and autoexec.bat have to be 
compatible with 386 enhanced mode. The OAK CD-ROM driver and later MS-DOS 
MSCDEX should be compatible. IIRC old sound card drivers were pretty bad about 
being 32bit incompatible. Some mouse drivers also had the problem.

Windows 3.11 (OEM release between 3.1 and WFWG 3.11) has either 32bit disk or 
32bit file access, I can never remember which. Either way it's useless because 
both are needed (which only WFWG 3.11 has) to do any speed improving. 32bit 
incompatible drivers in config.sys and autoexec.bat can prevent both using 386 
enhanced mode and 32bit disk and file access.

On Monday, February 19, 2018, 2:54:18 PM MST, jamie marchant 
 wrote:  
 Hi:

  I can't seem to get Windows 3.1 to run in 386 mode, is this a 
limitation for FreeDos?  --
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Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

It was partitioned, with an MBR, accessible to Windows when connected to a USB 
to IDE adapter.
 
Currently it's bootable to a DOS prompt. I used the "China DOS Union" DOS 7.1 
boot floppy with a USB floppy drive to fdisk and format the DOM installed in 
the thin client. I could go ahead and put that on, but I want to make a 'guilt 
free' redistributable DOM image along with detailed instructions of exactly 
what works so others can easily put FreeDOS on any WYSE Sx0 thin client.

What I haven't yet been able to do is get a FreeDOS installer onto a USB stick 
that will see the DOM when it's booted to USB. Either won't boot or will boot 
but can't see the DOM.

If there's a way to setup a FreeDOS boot floppy with USB support, that will 
work with an IDE CD-ROM drive connected with a USB adapter, I'll try digging 
out a CD-ROM drive and connecting both it and my USB floppy.
I'm assuming that as long as nothing connected via USB grabs hold of C: (or the 
primary fixed drive designation by any name) then the BIOS will allow the DOM 
to be seen and written to by the OS that's booted from USB. The WYSE utility 
for making flash drives to install the regular WYSE approved systems has to 
work around this. I could make one of those again and image it or examine it to 
see what format structure it uses.

A 'super floppy' FreeDOS image that can be written to a USB stick might do the 
trick, if it boots as A:.
I have a USB Iomega Zip drive. How about a Zip 100 image? ;) Dunno if the thin 
client will boot off one of those, would probably assign it to C: and make the 
DOM inaccessible.

On Friday, January 12, 2018, 7:17:42 AM MST, Tom Ehlert 
 wrote:  
> I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with
> FreeDOS. Mounted that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS
> install image and installed FreeDOS to the image copied from the
> DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that image back to the DOM. "Missing 
> Operating System".

I just reread this post.


"Missing Operating System" is usually issued by the master boot
record, when no active partition is found.

is the DOM partitioned, or a raw ('superfloppy') medium?


Tom  --
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Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

I'm going to try using RMPrepUSB to put the FreeDOS USB install image onto a 
USB stick. Why? Because it's supposed to be able to be selected to emulate an 
A: floppy drive (or as C: or D:) instead of presenting itself as C: like the 
FreeDOS image does. Recall that the FreeDOS installer initially says there's no 
fixed disk, then shows D: as unpartitioned, but cannot make any writes to it - 
yet *does not return an error* when attempting to partition the already 
partitioned DOM in a WYSE Sx0 thin client.

I'd think that selectable boot drive/device emulation should be part of the 
FreeDOS setup, for systems that expect their hard drive (or other fixed 
storage) to be the only fixed storage, aside from perhaps a CD-ROM.
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Re: [Freedos-user] Running FreeDOS floppy from a BIOS chip

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

If a way could be found to replace ThinOS on various models of WYSE thin 
clients, they'd be ideal platforms for an embedded DOS. ThinOS usually shares 
space in an extra large BIOS chip.
Installing it might involve a bit of hacking to make the OS installer creator 
utility setup a USB flash drive with the DOS image instead of a ThinOS one. 
Then there's the issue of OS 'locking' where only the thin clients that 
originally shipped with ThinOS are supposed to be eligible for updates to new 
ThinOS releases.
Versions of each model that shipped with Windows CE, Linux, or Windows embedded 
versions may not have the extra large BIOS chip.
Other brands of thin clients have also had such proprietary operating systems. 
I suspect they haven't been too popular because of the need to have apps 
written specifically for the OS, along with a server to run them from due to 
lack of onboard storage in most of those clients.--
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Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with FreeDOS. Mounted 
that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS install image and installed 
FreeDOS to the image copied from the DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that 
image back to the DOM. "Missing Operating System".
 

On Friday, January 5, 2018, 8:05:18 PM MST, Rugxulo  
wrote: 

Or why don't you install FreeDOS under VM to raw disk image, and then
dd it to the physical hard drive while under Linux. Then it should
boot correctly, right?  --
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[Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

I found an "MS-DOS 7.1" boot floppy image and *this one* had no problems 
booting the S30 with a USB floppy drive, wiping the DOM and creating a fresh 
partition with FDISK, then rebooting and using format c: /s
NOW it's booted to a DOS prompt from the DOM.
So I'll try FreeDOS again..
Nope. Same as before. Screen full of No Fixed disks present, followed by a 
prompt to repartition D:, but it cannot touch it.
Does the Lite USB install make a log file to diagnose why it's not working?
--
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

It's apparently blocking the FreeDOS USB booted setup from making any writes to 
IDE, after initially blocking it from detecting there's a drive there at all.
 
What would be nice is if I could get one of these thin clients in the hands of 
someone who can check it out in depth to figure out what it's doing to prevent 
working with an OS not supplied by WYSE.
One thing I have found out is that with the official operating systems, they're 
blocked from cross-updating to a different OS but that's easy to bypass by 
copying and pasting some text from a configuration file, for example I put WYSE 
Linux for an S50 onto an S30 by copying the ID info for the S30 in place of the 
same on a USB drive with the Linux installer. WYSE used to sell an XP Embedded 
upgrade kit for any of the Sx0 series to make them an S90. It had a 256 (or 512 
meg) SODIMM and a larger DOM, along with a CD-ROM. Unlike the normal 
downloadable utility and XPe image, that one would have to be configured to not 
care about the OS the client was locked to. But just try finding one of those 
CD-ROMs now.
There's two versions of the Sx0. The early model has soldered RAM and a 
proprietary DOM, was not available with XPe. This version seems to be pretty 
rare, none of my three are this model.
Then they switched to the 2.5" IDE connector and a removable SODIMM. There's a 
few minor revisions but they're only slight things that have no effect on 
software.

On Thursday, January 4, 2018, 6:51:48 PM MST, Rugxulo <rugx...@gmail.com> 
wrote:  
 Hi,

On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 6:36 PM, Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user
<freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>
> The workaround at the bottom of this page will have to be implemented in
> FreeDOS in order to install it from USB.

Writing to MSRs? Do you really think that's what Quentin did? I
somehow doubt it. He seems to have used stock (unmodified) FD kernel
2040 here.

Quick workaround: can't you install from floppy? (Perhaps USB floppy
drive?) Just to get the raw basics, then xcopy over extra stuff, if
needed.

Actually, you don't need full FreeDOS, just update the kernel (and
other utils, if needed). But even then I doubt too much changed
between kernel 2040 and now.

Or are you saying it won't write any files? You can't modify anything?  --
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

I just tried installing FreeDOS 1.2 Lite from a 512 meg USB drive onto a WYSE 
S30. Result? Failure.
It boots and launches the setup. First is says there's no fixed disk, then is 
says drive D: is not partitioned. So I have it partition and reboot.
Repeats this exactly the same. The BIOS *does* prevent some critical access to 
the IDE when booted from USB or when attempting to boot an OS from the IDE, 
except when using an OS and BIOS updater from USB or an OS from the IDE that 
came from WYSE.
The workaround at the bottom of this page will have to be implemented in 
FreeDOS in order to install it from USB. 
http://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/s10/Linux.shtml
--
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

The CNC control software has to have EMS. Without it, it can't use any more 
than low memory. It's *old* software, capable of running on a 1981 vintage 5150 
IBM PC. So I would assume it knows nothing of newer EMS types with their fancy 
features. If only Light Machines, then Intelitek, had bothered to write newer 
software for the PLM2000 like they did for the PLM1000.

On Thursday, January 4, 2018, 3:05:06 PM MST, E. Auer  
wrote:  
Some thoughts...

> The storage is an IDE Flash Disk, AKA Disk On Module. It has a 44 pin
> female header connector, same electrical interface as a 2.5" IDE hard
> drive. They're available dirt cheap in sizes from 64 megabytes to 2
> gigabytes, not so cheap in 4 and 8 gigabytes...

You can also use a compact flash (CF) card with a purely mechanical
adapter (CF can speak IDE interface language). They are cheap but I
think DOM can do more I/O transactions per second.

Another idea: Instead of EMS, you could use good old XMS to make a big
ramdisk and then copy everything there on boot. Assuming that you do
not plan to modify files on the machine - modifications would be lost
each time when you shut down or reboot without copying data back from
the ramdisk to the flash disk. The ramdisk would be as fast as the EMS
library of G files in your old software, but would not need EMS. In my
opinion, XMS drivers are more "tame" to use compared to EMS drivers.

If your old software supports EMS 4.0, then you would not need a 64k
page window. This is what the NOEMS option of EMS drivers does: It
skips the creation of the window. Software which understands version
4.0 of EMS can still use EMS without needing a large fixed window.

With DOS in HMA and drivers (if safe and not too fragmented) in UMB,
you will have a lot of low memory available. So depending on how large
those G-Code files are, things should be okay. Note that you can use
UMBPCI to have raw UMB without the hassles of configuring EMS right.
Also, UMBPCI is still maintained for support of many mainboard types.
  --
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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

Here's the FreeDOS image. Volume label is FREEDOS2012. Will mount in Quemu as a 
RAW image. Can't relocate the site I downloaded it 
from.https://anonfile.com/J8sau4d4bc/FreeDOS.rar

The storage is an IDE Flash Disk, AKA Disk On Module. It has a 44 pin female 
header connector, same electrical interface as a 2.5" IDE hard drive. They're 
available dirt cheap in sizes from 64 megabytes to 2 gigabytes, not so cheap in 
4 and 8 gigabytes. They were (possibly still are) made by around a dozen 
different companies, or that many put their logos on them. They come in three 
form factors. Bare PCB with right angle connector. Bare PCB with connector edge 
mounted. Plastic enclosed with connector on one edge. The latter two are easy 
to use as laptop hard drive replacements with a male/male pin adapter. 
*However*, the chips used on many of these DOM's are not too durable. They may 
not withstand the heavy write use of virtual memory or swap files. They're 
meant for embedded systems with an OS that does little or no writing to the 
storage.
  
I'd install an actual hard drive if there was enough room inside the thin 
client. 

 DOS or FreeDOS, I just want to get the thing to boot off the IDE flash module 
and run with as much EMS memory as it can. The software I need to run is made 
to run on anything with DOS, and EMS, and a serial port, all the way back to 
the 5150 IBM PC. Don't need any XMS, it loads the G-Code files into EMS, if 
available. Otherwise it uses whatever low memory is available and files too 
large to fit must be cut up with the spliiter/linker utility.
 Hopefully the WYSE Sx0 series thin client's memory map isn't all fragmented up 
like circa 1995 and newer laptops. They don't have a large enough contiguous 
RAM space to put the 64K EMS paging window. What would be very nice is to be 
able to hack the BIOS to either totally remove its tricks with the IDE port, or 
add an option to switch it between original and normal operation.

If this can be made to work I'll write up a how-to so other PLM2000 CNC mill 
owners can setup a tiny controller box and ditch the big PC. The control 
computer does zero computing of things like curves. It just sends G-Code to the 
mill and monitors return communications for encoder counts, limit switch 
activation and stop messages from exceeding torque limits. The servo controller 
in the mill does the heavy lifting.

On Thursday, January 4, 2018, 12:26:17 PM MST, Robert Riebisch 
 wrote:  
 
 Hi Gregg,

> Boot from USB and it's there. I have a FreeDOS image for a 64 megabyte
> module, which someone French setup for these thin clients. It will boot
> just fine, but in French. Somehow it works around or ignores it hiding
> or disabling the IDE controller.

1) Where did you get the FreeDOS image?
2) Can you make it available to us (Dropbox link?), so we can have a look?
3) What do you mean by saying "module"? Is it a CF card connected to the
IDE connector?

> Looks like I may have to use FreeDOS if there's no way to get past that
> with some MS-DOS version. But if there's some special extra
> configuration required for getting FreeDOS to work, I've no idea what it is.

1) Why are you keen on MS-DOS?
2) What's wrong with FreeDOS?

Robert Riebisch  --
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[Freedos-user] FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

I'm attempting to get some DOS onto a WYSE Sx0 thin client. The problem is 
right after the OS starts to load from the IDE flash module, the BIOS steps in 
and hides the IDE controller. So it comes up missing operating system.
Boot from USB and it's there. I have a FreeDOS image for a 64 megabyte module, 
which someone French setup for these thin clients. It will boot just fine, but 
in French. Somehow it works around or ignores it hiding or disabling the IDE 
controller.
The problem and fix for Linux is at the bottom of this page 
http://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/s10/Linux.shtml
Looks like I may have to use FreeDOS if there's no way to get past that with 
some MS-DOS version. But if there's some special extra configuration required 
for getting FreeDOS to work, I've no idea what it is.
I don't need anything complicated for DOS, just configuring the 128 meg RAM for 
as much EMS as possible because the old software I want to run uses EMS not 
XMS, and USB support for reading files from flash drives. Getting the Realtek 
AC97 sound and Realtek LAN working would be nice, but not required.
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Re: [Freedos-user] challenging dos question.

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

No problem if you know the full path and file name. If you have ATTRIB you can 
hit it with -H to make it visible.
https://www.computerhope.com/attribhl.htm

On Saturday, December 2, 2017, 11:56:07 AM MST, Karen Lewellen 
 wrote:  
 
 Hi folks,
its complicated.  However, is there a way to copy over a file that is 
technically hidden?
having
  a bit of a computer crisis.

thanks,
Kare  --
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Re: [Freedos-user] Some driver updates

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

What do these "Jack's Drivers" actually do?
 

On Friday, November 17, 2017, 1:59:11 AM MST, Eric Auer 
 wrote:  
 
 Hi Rugxulo,

you are not going to make Jack any more kind by publicly
sharing all private email details of your private fight...

Jack does update drivers because he is a perfectionist,
but he is also known for not liking the FreeDOS community
(including in particular you) so it is no surprise that
he fails to make nice announcements, share sources, etc.
... which is why almost everybody here stopped to care.

I, too found it a bit silly that there even was a license,
and for a while even code, for preventing FreeDOS use of
the drivers. The "hack" problem was for one of the closed
source releases: Somebody used a debugger to deobfuscate
that driver to remove machine code which had deliberately
made the driver unusable on FreeDOS. You cannot STEAL free
software indeed but you can upset authors by spoiling their
ability to upset users :-p So yes, you can call it a HACK.
Note that this was many years ago, long forgotten by many.

So what should I say? We already know everything about the
situation. There is no point in reiterating again and again
that fights between humans keep machines from enjoying nice
drivers here, as this is not going to change that anyway.  --
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Re: [Freedos-user] Some driver updates

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

512 meg? Luxury! My first hard drive was FIVE megabytes. A full height 5.25" 
MFM made by Tandon. I installed MS-DOS (3.1 IIRC) and all the software I had, 
mostly games. It was *half full*! Then I backed it up, onto 360K floppies. By 
the time I put the last disk on the stack, I was thinking "Never again.". Disks 
cost too much to tie up like that.
 

On Saturday, November 4, 2017, 3:02:12 PM MDT,  
wrote:  
The HDD actually isn't that small: it's a 512 MB Transcend 40-pin IDE 
flash module.  --
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